


Speaking of tragedies and the make-believe

by reytheghost



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, First War with Voldemort, M/M, Post-Hogwarts, Sexual Content, cw: mention of blood and death, mostly: implicit sexual content with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 19:22:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20981084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reytheghost/pseuds/reytheghost
Summary: The Wizarding World is at war. Sirius and Remus are at home. The days get shorter and darker, but they still have these moments together.





	Speaking of tragedies and the make-believe

He laughed. "That would be tragic."

Remus wasn't laughing. He looked at Sirius – or maybe not directly at Sirius; it was hard to see in the dim light of the last rays of the setting sun in the west falling through the curtains that had been closed for at least a month now – from where he was sitting on the edge of the table with an unlit cigarette in his left hand. Although Sirius could guess the kind of expression on Remus' face, he got up from where he was sitting on the couch. He stumbled towards the door and turned on the light.

It was brighter than he had expected it to be.

Remus blinked slowly, once, twice. Then he pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes and said, “That was unnecessary,” while the corners of his mouth curled up in the beginning of a smile. Sirius heard it in his voice too, and he thought that as long as he could make Remus laugh, it wasn't a lost cause.

They could keep doing this, while the world collapsed around them; sitting in the dark in the living room of their flat that nowadays looked more like a shelter than a real home, especially in the bright light, from the bare walls to the dust on the window sills, and the carelessly, half-packed trunk that stood next to the table as though they were about to leave (they had been, some weeks ago). At least the floor was clean. They could keep doing this, while the world collapsed around them; sitting on the floor, the table and the couch, talking, talking and getting distracted and moving to the bed that had been Remus' but was now their's and pretending that this was the only thing that mattered, the two of them together and probably doomed, considering their life stories so far, but linked at the core, while the others got married, made children, and attempted to hold on to a rhythm of a daily life.

"So was hexing Fenwick's shoes during the meeting," Sirius said.

"Yeah?"

"He thought I’d done it. If I had been sitting next to him, he would have killed me with that knife – the one he always carries around like a psychopath – and I would have bled all over Molly Weasley's new grey carpet."

"I think Molly saw me hex him," Remus said helpfully, while he placed the cigarette in the porcelain bowl that had been a present from the Potters that was most likely not meant to be used as an ashtray, and crossed the room towards Sirius who had sat down on the couch again. “So she'd come after me."

Sirius snorted. "I would be dead anyway. Fenwick would just stab me in my liver or my stomach, maybe also slit my throat, just for fun, to see the blood gushing out."

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Now  _ that  _ would be tragic."

Sirius reached out and placed his fingers against Remus' neck. Remus momentarily stilled at the cold touch. Then he leaned into it, his brown eyes trained on Sirius’, half expressionless in a way that said  _ you’re crazy _ , half fond and full of affection. His heart clenched.

"My corpse in the living room of the Weasleys,” he said. “Blood everywhere, open flesh. Everyone – except for Marlene maybe, because she’s used to watching it on the telephone – television, same thing – everyone else would throw up. It wouldn't look attractive, Moony. We can't have that."

"We?"

"You," he corrected himself. "I'd be dead, killed by a piece of cursed metal instead of in a fight for the greater good. It would make a very unattractive sight and I would never stop rolling over in my grave, so to speak, if I knew that was the last you'd seen of me. I’d prefer a well-aimed killing curse."

Remus let out a humourless laugh. "I'd prefer if you didn't die at all," he said, while he gently brushed a strand of Sirius' hair out of his face.

"But if I did," Sirius couldn’t help saying, moving his thumb over Remus' jaw.

“Shut up, Sirius.”

"The killing curse would be the best. All your organs would just” – he twisted his wrist sharply – “stop, like unplugging the power cable from the television. There, gone. From the outside, my body would stay intact. Not sure what's more morbid; something that looks like it should be alive or something all –”

Remus pulled Sirius closer and smashed their mouths together, hard at first, taking, his breath away. After a few seconds, he cupped Sirius' face in his hands, brushed his thumbs gently over his cheekbones and kissed him properly, deliberately, almost too carefully. He pulled away and sighed, his eyes sad but awake, and his cheeks slightly red. Sirius slid his hand from Remus' jaw to his neck to his jaw to his lips, where he felt the warmth of his breath against his fingertips, and marvelled at the sight of this man; Remus, beautiful and so good, kindness flowing through his veins; his Moony with his smiles soft like the last day of summer, and his hands rough on Sirius' cold skin, giving him warmth, smoothing over the erratic beating of his heart. Sirius kissed him, pushed his fingers through Remus’ curls. He let Remus pull him down on top of him, their legs together, their chests colliding like the waves crashing on the shore, battleships coming home.

"You're cold," Remus said, while he trailed his hands over Sirius' spine, pushing his T-shirt up. Sirius took it off.

"Do something about it?" he mumbled and Remus laughed. “Don’t laugh at me, Moony.” He unbuttoned Remus' button-up shirt with trembling fingers, clumsily, because he saw no reason to not give in to the urge to press his lips to the pulse in Remus' neck. Remus pulled away slightly. “Moony.”

Remus touched his lips to Sirius' knuckles, but didn't give in. "Come to bed," he said softly, so Sirius did.

As soon as his back touched the mattress, he reached for Remus' belt.

There was something about the twist of Remus' lips, the hunger in his eyes, visible in the green speckles in the right light. He looked at Sirius as though he wanted him, all of him – unmistakingly something he would recognise when he saw it, knowing what it felt like. There was nothing about Remus he didn't want, not even his oppressive silences and his totally not rational rationality that was good for initiating a fight, and he loved his chapped lips and his crooked nose and the scars that marred his skin in weird places and weirder lines, a map leading the way. 

Sirius didn't know when it had started, and more and more he had started to think that everything had led to this, all the pain and all the days. Their bodies moving together like one, one, one. It pressed against his chest from both sides, it obstructed his windpipe, pulled at his heartstrings. It was like being pulled in by the tidal current and still finding each other. 

“I'm so glad we got both sorted into Gryffindor. I'm so glad that Dumbledore let you go to Hogwarts and that our parents had sex in roughly the same time and that we're not dead.”

Remus pulled his mouth away from Sirius’ shoulder, but before he could say that he’d just mentioned three things he really didn’t want to think about  _ right now _ , Sirius wrapped his hand around his cock.

“Have you noticed how it takes forever to get to fucking know people?” He pressed his fingers to the inside of Remus’ thigh. “I don’t remember – I swear I’ve known you forever.” At Hogwarts, ever since that first year, they would talk all night while they had classes the next morning, and he remembered how he had held Remus when he was upset, and how Remus had tried to assure him that nothing about him could be _that _bad, which was how Sirius felt about Remus and which he was, in the back of his mind, sure he himself did not fully deserve. Somehow he had got to know Remus, somehow Remus had got to know him; somehow they had let each other into wastelands behind human exteriors. It was terrifying and the fucking greatest thing ever. 

“I don’t know either,” Remus breathed. “Does it matter.”

He locked his eyes on Sirius. Sirius didn't know what he had ever done to deserve Remus, if it worked like that, and he didn't know why now of all moments, but Remus was right; it didn't matter when he buried his face in Remus’ shoulder, Remus buried his hand in his hair and said his name like he didn’t know what he was saying but felt like it was important and true.

His heart was beating in his throat. He pressed himself up on one elbow to look at Remus. His hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, his slightly open mouth was red and his eyes were bright. He was the most beautiful Sirius had ever seen. "Stop staring at me," he mumbled, tapping the back of Sirius' hand that rested on his chest.

"Moony.“ His breath hitched in his throat. “Come here."

Remus gave a lopsided smile that Sirius loved, and he said, almost shyly, "This is my favourite place,” meaning the bed or the flat or the room with the dubious stains on the ceiling, or maybe he meant Sirius, or the place where he was pressing his fingers to the beginning of a bruise on Sirius' throat.

Sirius lay down again, his head on Remus’ chest. “Mine too. These are my favourite moments.” He found Remus' hand, laced their fingers together and then let go to press his leg between Remus' warm legs. "You know. A future, and a world of peace – it would mean nothing if you weren't in it.” Vaguely, he remembered that this afternoon, he had, to no avail, tried to talk Remus out of a ridiculous mission  –  but this was not about that. This was about something else entirely. The truth beyond the laws of magic. He wondered if he would ever find the words.

“Padfoot,” Remus said a bit urgently. He lifted Sirius' chin to look him in the eye. “Are you okay?”

"Or, I love you. I fucking love you."

Remus  placed his arm over Sirius’ shoulders and pulled the duvet over their naked bodies despite the fact that cleaning up first would not be a bad idea. The corner of his mouth curled up a little when Sirius tangled his hand in his hair and tugged a little. “I know.” 

Sirius poked his elbow into Remus’ ribs. “Don’t be an asshole.”

“Don’t. You know I do too. All those things.” He traced a pattern on his back. He laughed a little,  a misplaced sound in the quiet of the darkness that surrounded them and was about to engulf them too. Sirius trailed his fingers down the sharp lines and shadows of Remus’ face, tightened his arm around his chest and closed his eyes. At this moment, anything else was irrelevant. They could keep doing this, until the world would collapse on top of them in a still undetermined way. 

**Author's Note:**

> (i found looking at my old username annoying so i added a y. i hope it doesn't affect anything. it also matches my tumblr username now.)


End file.
